Picking Up Her Pieces
by forensicpathologistninja
Summary: Logan's POV from my stories "A Sound Like Angels Falling" and "Hold me Together as I Fly Apart". Read those first, and it will be more fun, I promise.
1. Night Has Fallen

**A/N: this is a sequel to "A Sound Like Angels Falling" and "Hold Me Together As I Fly Apart", and though they take place simultaneously, it is better for you to read those first (in that order, I believe, but it is entirely up to you). This has pretty much the same timeline as those, but this is from Logan's POV instead of Veronica's.**

**PICKING UP HER PIECES: NIGHT HAS FALLEN  
**

**90909**

You always knew Veronica Mars had a breaking point. Even after she'd cut her hair and become the badass bitch who spewed insults and barbs to top your own, even after she'd learned to change her own damn tires because she didn't have any friends anymore (because you took them away), even after she turned _you_, the person she proposed to love, in to the police for fucking _murder_ (and one that you didn't commit), you still knew that there had to be a point at which this all just became too much for her.

The irony is that you never ever dared to think it would be _this_ and you definitely never ever thought _you'd_ be the one to try to hold her together.

But the moment you hear her choked voice "He killed my _father_!", you knew that this was the moment. This was the exact second at which it just wasn't okay anymore, and never would be again.

You held her tightly, trying to keep her from thinking about the 'what-if' of her following Cassidy off the roof. When she tore away from you yelling about that computer chick, you almost fainted, thinking for a second that she really was going to jump. But she didn't, just ran down the steps and to the desk to demand the room number for the Casablancas boy.

You almost strangled the man at the desk who gave her a hard time. Apparently he was sick the day they covered "dealing with distraught girls and their angry boyfriends" in worthless job school. But you eventually convinced him that Mr. Casablancas wouldn't mind if their privacy was interrupted (it was probably the sight of his body splattered over the road that did it), and then there was a naked Mac and dealing with Mac's parents and the police and it's all really a blur in your mind.

You don't remember details until you arrive at Veronica's apartment, and you're pretty sure she doesn't either. Hazy memory of the night tells you that you're both lucky in this respect. Especially since a rookie deputy apparently had it in her mind to arrest Veronica for what happened to Cassidy, and was only stopped when Lamb quietly told her that if she tried to cuff anyone else tonight without his say-so, she'd be fired.

But arriving at the Mars apartment is a memory you could live without as well. If things had happened differently, you'd have invited her back to your house so she didn't have to deal with an empty apartment tonight. But now all you have to offer is your room at the Grande, and God, but _that's _not happening tonight.

She heads straight for her room, but as soon as she passes her father's door, she breaks down, sobbing on the floor. Before you even manage to gather your wits and go to her, she's dry-heaving, painfully, and all you can do is hold back her hair and rub her back soothingly. When she's finished, you run a towel under cool water and wipe her face and neck as you lead her to the couch and sit her down.

For the longest time, she says nothing, just sits there and stares ahead with dead eyes. Then, without warning, she turns to you, and crawls into your lap, burying her face in your chest. You don't hear her sobs, but your shirt is getting steadily wetter, and you still haven't figured out how to make this better at all. It tears you apart just to see her hurting so much, so you don't even want to think about how it must feel for her.

The next switch she makes is so sudden that you almost jump out of your skin. One second you're both sitting quietly on the couch, and the next she's screaming and pounding her little fists so hard against the arm of the sofa that you're afraid she'll break something – either the furniture or her own tiny hands. Then there is screaming and tearing pictures and pounding on the walls so hard that a giant picture falls down and nearly kills her. You're certain that if you hadn't managed to drag her out of the way in time, she would have been impaled on the broken glass.

But all you can do is hold her and tell her over and over again that you'll never leave her.

Something you almost regret an hour later when she's laying in the fetal position on her bed, shivering, eyes wide open. Not that you'd leave her like this, but you know you have a veritable pharmacy in your Xterra, both old scripts of your mom's and old scripts of yours and your fathers, and you're certain there's something in there that will help her sleep, but you're scared to leave and get them. You don't even consider trying to get her to come with you, and eventually, you brush her hair back and tell her that you're going to grab something from your car, and that you'll talk to her on the phone the whole time. This seems to comfort her, and though the conversation is rather one-sided and awkward, you'll never regret doing it.

You coax her into taking some valium, and she finally sleeps.

**90909**

By the next morning, she is numb and nearly unresponsive. This is probably why you don't tell her about your own father's death, for which you don't actually feel anything, and it's also the reason you end up helping Cliff and Alicia plan most of Keith's funeral. There is no body, and you won't let this wait and fester while the insurance investigates the claim, so you insist on paying for it yourself.

Your own father's funeral is something you tell his lawyers to plan and give them a ten thousand dollar limit. Spending more on the funeral of a man he tried to kill feels like a kind of absolution and smug revenge all at once, and it's the best you'd have felt in a while, if it weren't for the fact that you'd rather Veronica's father were still alive.

The funeral for Keith is beautiful and simple, and everything he would have wanted, if the man had ever thought of such things. If he'd been sixty years older. If…

You refuse to attend your father's funeral, telling the lawyers to tell the press that you're too distraught if it will make them feel better, but that they better not let anyone know where you are or why, unless they want to find themselves alone and penniless on the street somewhere in India. It works, or maybe it's just that you never told _them_ where you were either, but in the end you don't really care. No reporters or crazed fans bother Veronica, and that's all that matters to you.

**90909**

Numb and unresponsive is how she exists for the next several days, until, one night, she settles herself on top of you, begging you to make her feel something, _anything_ but the pain.

You make love to her that night, drawing her orgasms screaming from her raw throat, making each one last as long as possible, because you know this is the first time she's felt anything positive since before Duncan left.

That night, after the fifth time you make her come, when her body is covered in sweat and slick sweetness, she falls deeply asleep, and it is the first time she sleeps through the night since graduation.

After this though, she doesn't let you make love to her, doesn't let you go slow and worship her the way you know she deserves. And soon, she begs you to fuck her instead of tucking her in or making her dinner, and you grow more and more worried.

She's lost six pounds already, and it's only been a week since her father's death. In place of those six pounds, she's gained huge blue and purple bruises around her eyes.

There is nothing that can keep her from breaking, and it seems almost selfish to try, but you can't help it.

"Ronica, I want you to talk to somebody about this," you whisper into her hair one night, and you're still so close you can feel her fear as she tenses underneath you. She doesn't respond, but you know she knows what you mean. How could she not? She isn't sleeping, isn't eating, and barely talks. The most you hear her voice anymore is when you're pushing into her, and even then, it's not really words so much as grunts.

You give her a good two minutes to digest this information, but she still doesn't respond, and you feel the need to explain your reasoning to her. Despite the fact that you voice your concern that she's not eating or sleeping, and you're terrified she's going to kill herself, you know all she really hears is the part where you've already set up an appointment with a psychiatrist.

And the part about staying in a hospital. She definitely hears _that_, because her tiny emaciated body tenses up and her breaths come in ragged gasps. You know you have to calm her down, because when you talked to the doctor, she told you that you should do everything in your power to keep Veronica calm. The extreme weight loss added to stress could cause some heart problem you can't pronounce, but all you really needed to know was that Veronica could get hurt.

"Hey," you whisper gently to her, pressing your fingers under her chin to make her meet your eyes. Then you kiss her sweetly on the lips.

She jumps into the kiss with a fervor that almost scares you, and you try to slow her down, but as usual, she won't let you make love to her, she just wants you to fuck her as hard as possible.

Sometimes you worry that it's the pain she's grown addicted to, but then you too are caught up in the moment, and somehow this time is even more desperate than any before it.

That should have been your first hint that she won't be there when you wake up.

**90909**

When you wake up each morning, the very first thing you do is bury your nose in Veronica's hair and breathe deeply. Though she barely ever sleeps, chances are she's tired enough to drift off by the time you wake up in the morning, and this is when her sleep is at its most peaceful.

This is when you love to watch her, because she is beautiful when she sleeps. With your arms around her, her nightmares seem to leave her, at least for a little while, and you drink in her appearance. You want to remember her forever like that, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, brow mercifully free of wrinkles. Even the rings around her eyes seem lighter in the early morning light.

But this morning, when you reach out to draw her closer, your hands hit empty space. Alarmed, your eyes spring open, to find Veronica –

Gone.

The very first thing you do _this_ morning is panic.

**90909**

The second thing you do is call her, just in case she's decided to take Back-Up for a walk… for the first time in a week… without Back-Up.

Yeah right. But you have to try.

You leave her two messages before you finally decide that she's definitely not just on an innocent little stroll around town.

Then you call Wallace. And Mac. And Weevil. And Lamb. And then you go down to the sheriff's department. By this time, Alicia and Wallace are with you, and Weevil is on his way to meet you.

You're fully prepared to go to war with Lamb over opening a missing persons case, but he surprises you.

When you tell him that Veronica is gone, his eyes go wide, and he jumps up from his chair. Then, with a sigh, he sits back down. "I can't technically open a file for her."

Before you can argue, he storms out of the office, and calls Leo and Sachs to join you.

"As I was saying," he continues, sitting back down, "I can't officially open a file. But you two and myself will be taking a little vacation until she gets back…"

Sachs, who is apparently not as quick as he should be, queries "Why? Where are we going to be?"

Lamb rolls his eyes. "Wherever Veronica is."

**90909**

You set up an operation that would make the FBI jealous (Mac alone could do _that_) and it almost surprises you how quickly you actually figure out where she is.

40 hours.

That's how long it takes for someone to call in – a man who helps his sister run a Motel 6 off the highway somewhere in Texas. He tells Lamb that a girl who looks a lot like their Veronica is staying in one of the rooms. And she doesn't look good. Your heart jumps to your throat as you and Lamb race to your Xterra.

_Please be okay._

This is the only thing you think the entire way there.

It's the only prayer you don't dare hope gets answered.

**90909**

"So, I know why I need to find Veronica… but – well, to be honest, I'm not sure why you're here. You hate her," you say, after a couple hours of silence.

Lamb looks at you.

"I don't hate her."

"Coulda fooled me. And her. And everyone else."

Lamb nods, and turns to look out of the window.

"I know. But I never hated her. I did things to protect her that she might never know about."

This piques your interest and annoys you all at once. You're glad he's helping you, because he can set up things that you can't, but that doesn't mean you've forgiven him for hurting Veronica so much. For ignoring her rape. For laughing at her.

"Like what?" You ask, and you don't quite manage to keep the steel out of your voice.

You hear a long sigh. "I know that I've been cruel to her, Logan, but there are things neither of you know about. There are men, very bad men, after her father, and they won't hesitate to hurt her if it means hurting him. Even now that he's dead, they'll go after her."

You suck in a breath, able to guess just who he means. "The Fitzpatricks."

Suddenly the day she went into the River Styx comes to mind. You thought you'd never be more thankful for a gun than you were that day, but you think now that everything's clearer, you're even more grateful than you were then.

Lamb doesn't answer you directly. "They had a mole. At least one, maybe more, within the force. I'm pretty sure they had someone working with the feds. My first day as sheriff, I got a message from them. If I ever did anything to help the Mars family, I was dead. And I knew that with me gone, and no one else knowing about what was going on, there wouldn't be anyone else to stand between them and Veronica. I know – God, I _know_ I was an ass to her. I know you don't have any reason to believe me. But I did it to protect her. I hired someone to watch her, or, rather, to watch _them_ and make sure they didn't hurt her."

You're confused for a second before everything falls into place.

The bug. It wasn't because she was investigating Lilly Kane's case. It was because Lamb had hired a bodyguard.

"Clarence Weidman… but then… fuck… he followed her, that night, to Barstow. What does her mother have to do with the Fitzpatricks?"

Lamb shakes his head. "Nothing. At the time, though, she was receiving suspicious pay-offs that I couldn't trace. Now I know they all came from Jake Kane, and I know that Clarence knew about all of them. But the bar Lianne frequented down in Barstow was also receiving pay-offs. From Liam. So Clarence followed her anyway, even knowing her mother didn't pose a threat.

This is a lot for you to take in.

The rest of the ride is silent.

**90909**

Then you are there, and the man tells you that Veronica checked out an hour ago, but hasn't left yet. You refuse to let yourself think too much on what this must say about her mental state.

And then there_ she_ is, and she's sitting, shivering on the bed, curled in on herself in a way that makes your stomach lurch. The tears falling from her eyes rip your heart out.

You don't like to think about what she's been doing without you there to take care of her. She wasn't doing that great even when you _were_ responsible for her welfare, and now she looks even worse than she did the last time you saw her. You didn't even think that was _possible._

The dark circles under her eyes have grown, and her eyes are glazed over, sliding in and out of focus. She doesn't seem to be able to concentrate on any one thing for more than a few seconds at a time. She doesn't seem to know where she is, or who you are, or why either of you are there. When you wrap your arm around her shoulders, you feel the sharp bones sticking out under her skin.

But to your relief, she leans in to you, resting her head against your chest. She doesn't respond when Lamb asks her when she last ate, only lets her thin arms snake around your torso to pull you tightly to her as she buries her face in your shirt, but somehow you know she's heard, and this is another relief.

After the owner of the motel and Lamb talk a bit, the sheriff motions for you to take Veronica out to the car, and you do, handing him your keys on the way out. You don't want to drive anymore. You just want to hold Veronica, so that's what you do. You hold her and stroke her hair and kiss her face, and whisper nonsensical things to her, just to reassure her that you're there.

She still hasn't spoken.

**90909**

Lamb pulls off the road into the parking lot of a little diner for lunch, and the two of you eat quickly, then spend the better part of an hour cajoling Veronica to eat some more. When she finally just shakes her head and then drops down to your lap, you and Lamb exchange a look. She's barely eaten anything, and this worries you. But she's clearly not in the mood for you to force anything more down her throat, so you just carry her back to the car and drive off.

Not five minutes later she finally decides to pipe up.

"I'm going to be sick," her tiny voice breaks through the quiet, and Lamb barely manages to pull over before Veronica flings the door wide and vomits until she's a heaving mess, curled in on herself on the side of the highway.

You hold her hair and rub her back, unsure what else you can do to help her. By the time she collapses into you, Lamb is there with a bottle of water, which he holds to her lips.

Once she seems to be falling asleep, you return to the car and are on your way.

In the car, you brush the silky hair back from her face, and you feel her flinch a little as you come near her eyes.

Not asleep. Of course. Never asleep.

**90909**

The motel where you stop for the night isn't nearly as fancy as the ones you'd insist on staying in under different circumstances. But these are not different circumstances, and the coffee is hot and the sheets are cool and the woman at the desk furrows her brow and calls Veronica 'sweetie' as she gets her another blanket without you having to ask.

The look on Veronica's face changes from dazed sorrow to something resembling fabricated obligatory gratitude, and it is the first real reaction you've seen from her since you found her again. You could kiss the woman, you are so happy (but you won't – the hurt look on Veronica's face would kill you, no matter how much you try to tell yourself that you'd do anything to get any kind of reaction out of her). Instead you make a mental note to leave the woman a huge tip.

You undress her and help her bathe, carefully not commenting on the flinch she tries to hide as she feels her clothes lifted off, or the way each individual rib is clearly visible under her papery skin. Then you dress her in a t-shirt and bundle her up in the blankets, spooning her close to your chest.

She relaxes into you, but you know she isn't sleeping. Sleep is something for those who have not yet realized the horrifying truths hidden within their nightmares.

It is a wonder any of you ever slept at all.

**90909**

You arrive back in Neptune, your precious little bundle tucked into your side, and receive a hero's welcome from all those who matter. The thought of this makes you want to crawl out of your skin, because part of you – the bigger part – acknowledges that its mostly your fault that she needed rescuing in the first place.

But no one, Veronica included, seems to blame you for it. Veronica seems to be far too broken to even know which way is up, though, so this is only a small comfort. Surrounded by her friends, the family she created for herself, she does not blossom, does not seem to regain any of the light lost from her eyes, and it makes your frozen heart burn with unshed tears and something like regret.

There are many ghosts in her eyes, and there have been ever since the day your father bashed Lilly's skull in with an ashtray, maybe even farther back than that. After Lilly's death and your betrayal and her mother's flight and her rape, she carried with her the ghost of the little girl she had to sacrifice to exist as she did then, and does now. You can almost remember watching her die. You can almost remember holding the smoking gun.

Now the most prominent ghost is that of something you cannot quite name, and it utterly terrifies you. It might be hope, and it definitely is _not_ innocence – she lost _that_ long ago, had the weight of the world thrust upon her tiny pink shoulders long before she ever had to watch her father become a burning ball of fire in the sky – and whatever it is, it is something that no human should ever have to live without.

You'd almost dared to hope, a week ago, that by rescuing her, you might resurrect _her_, that barely there wisp of a memory of the innocent and cotton-candy sweet Veronica, and you don't know why you ever let yourself believe that. You should have known better. The dead do not come back to life. Instead, you all carry your dead with you, within you. And sometimes, more often than you'd care to think about, they win.

This thought scares you most of all, and, as you watch her _finally_ drift off to sleep hours after your homecoming, bundled up in one of her father's shirts and with you and her friends all cuddled together as one entity in her father's bed, you vow silently to always be there to protect her from these ghosts that would swallow her whole.

You can't keep her from breaking when she falls, but maybe you can be there to pick up the pieces. Maybe there will even be enough glue to stick them back together.

**90909**

End part 1

**A/N note: Okay, okay, so I know some of you are thinking 'Lamb hired Clarence to watch Veronica? But he worked for Jake. That doesn't make sense.' But I promise I'll manage to tie it all together nicely in the end... not the end of _this_ story, but I'm doing one from Lamb's POV last, and that will explain anything you have questions about and probably some things you didn't. Just work with me here.**


	2. Amongst the Living and the Dying

A/N: Many thanks to Nova8604, without whom, there wouldn't be a multichapter fic, much less a series.

**PICKING UP HER PIECES: AMONGST THE LIVING AND THE DYING**

**90909**

By the time you wake up the next morning, you are alone with Mac in Keith's bed. You almost panic again, in Veronica's absence, because the way this ended last time couldn't be considered 'well' by any stretch of the imagination, but then you hear voices from the kitchen, and sigh in relief.

The huge intake of air alerts Mac, who was stirring anyway. For a long moment, the two of you only sit awkwardly in bed, and think separate but similar thoughts.

"She's going to be okay, right?" Mac suddenly asks, her voice more tremulous than you've ever heard it.

You swallow hard. Truth be told, you really just don't know. You can't even tell her for certain what 'okay' means anymore.

"Let's get some breakfast," you say, deciding to ignore the question. She nods and bites her lip.

"That's what I thought," she whispers as you leave the room.

And you marvel at how easy it was to forget that Veronica wasn't the only one who was broken.

**90909**

Veronica is gone again, and by God you could kill her. And them, for letting her go. She took Back-up with her, so you're not as worried as you could be, but you still feel the breath catch painfully in your throat. You try to convince yourself that you needn't worry at all, after last night's talk, she won't be leaving you again. You try to convince yourself to trust that her fragile mind is healing.

It doesn't work.

And this is why, after only an hour spent pacing in her living room, you and Lamb leave to find her, without even having to say a word. It almost scares you that you are now in synch with _Don_ _Lamb_ of all people.

Almost. Maybe it will scare you more when you're not so terrified that Veronica will end up far too dead, far too soon.

**90909**

You find her quickly, but only because a local good Samaritan had found her first, unconscious on the beach, and had to call Lamb when Back-up refused to let anyone near the girl.

Seeing as the Samaritan was Sean O'Conner, you're glad. There's no evidence he's with the Fitzpatricks other than his Irish name, but given what Lamb told you last week, you're not taking any chances. You don't let yourself think too long about why someone trying to kidnap her would call the cops. Lamb has proved to be far to publically incompetent before for you to think the Irish in your girl's would-be savior is a coincidence.

The moment he hears the name, a look passes between the two of you, and Lamb suggests a vacation for Veronica – a vacation in a place far away, and with his own person police protection.

You don't agree or disagree. You want to see Veronica first.

**90909**

She is lying in the hot sand, a puddle of skimpy Happy Bunny pajamas and sun-blistered skin. Back-up is near her, whining piteously, occasionally licking her face and trying to cover her with as much of his shadow as he can. Which, given that it is almost noon, isn't much.

Back-up lets you near enough to take her, and then trots along after you towards the police cruiser when you carry her as gently as you can.

She wakes up and you can see the pain and confusion clouding her eyes and mind. In response to the confusion, you inform her that she's been outside, running, barefoot, and in the hot sun for roughly two hours.

In response to the pain, you take her to the hospital.

**90909**

Several hours pass while the doctors give her fluids and ice-baths and burn creams. They give her a prescription for Loratab, and your heart clenches as this throws into sharp relief the huge amount of pain she must be in. They had called you in to triage to comfort her as the doctors debrieded her feet, and her screaming is the stuff of nightmares. It killed you that the only thing you could do was hold her tightly, preventing her from causing herself any more damage, while they tortured her little body.

The next moment, though, you are grateful to the doctors because they prescribe her strong pain medications and some lotions for her red skin. They'd managed to prevent anything life-threatening, but there are places on her thin shoulders and her face with second-degree burns. The doctors carefully lanced the larger blisters, leaving the smaller ones to heal on their own. At first you worry about how hard it will be to keep Veronica from picking at the boils, but once the pain medications takes hold of her, you almost laugh at your fears. She's higher than you've ever seen anyone in your life.

She gazes up at you through heavy lids, struggling to keep them open.

"Sleep, baby," you tell her.

"Sleep," she echoes, a mere whisper breathed into your neck as she burrows down and get comfortable. Apparently she's decided that you are softer than the pillows provided by the hospital. You can't decide whether you should feel emasculated (you worked hard for those muscles, after all) or flattered. You decide on the latter, after much deliberation. Then you laugh at yourself for spending so much time deliberating such a silly thing. Then you reassure yourself that it's okay, because it's not like you had anything better to do, sitting on a padded gurney, holding your sleeping girlfriend.

By the time the nurse comes by with Veronica's discharge papers, you have officially decided that this little woman in your arms? Is driving you crazy.

**90909**

The pills are a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they put her out, so you _know_ there's no way she's in any pain. On the other hand, she needs to eat, and she needs to talk to a therapist, neither of which can be done while she is unconscious.

Her doctor assures you that this second problem isn't really an issue, as she won't notice the passing of time while asleep, and a few weeks won't make too much of a difference in the long run. The first problem, however, he admonishes you to watch closely. She's badly injured, and injuries don't heal without propped nutrition.

You don't think you've ever seen so many types of soup in one cabinet in your whole life, but it's really all she can handle, it being soft and not requiring a lot of Veronica's wan energy to swallow, and this is what she exists on for the next several days.

This and water and pills keep her alive.

Barely.

**90909**

She has nightmares, as the pain decreases and the doctor tells you to start giving her half-doses of the Loratab. You can't count the number of times she's woken up screaming, thinking she was on fire again and calling for her daddy to save her. Then she realizes that she is safe, is not on fire, is at home in her bed, in her own room.

That her father isn't coming to save her because he can't; because he's dead.

The screaming doesn't stop.

**90909**

Back-up is a traitor, and not nearly as smart as Veronica gives him credit for. You decide this sometime around 7am, when you wake up to the sound of thunder and the damned dog howling at the door.

You go to get him, intent on shutting him up before he wakes Veronica, who's had a pretty rough night, and that's when you realize it.

You were alone in Keith's bed when the storm woke you.

Alicia is in Veronica's bed, the door is open and you can see that the woman is sleeping peacefully – and alone. Wallace is rubbing his eyes groggily on the couch, and Lamb is in his own bed tonight.

But Veronica is not in the bathroom, not in her room, not in the living room or the kitchen, and with the final tally: not in her apartment.

And since you haven't gotten a call from Lamb, Mac, or Weevil, this means that her most likely location is the beach.

Outside.

In the storm.

"Fuck!" You shout, flipping open your phone and dialing Lamb's number. Without waiting for him to ask you what the fuck you're calling him for, you tell him to meet you on the beach, the usual spot.

The usual spot.

And that is how Lamb will know that Veronica's gotten herself into trouble again.

"Shit, she's out there right now? In _this_ weather?"

You don't answer, just jam your keys into the ignition and speed off towards Dog Beach and a little blond fairy with tiny broken wings and your heart in her hands.

**90909**

By the time you get there, the wind is whipping around you and the storm is raging like you've never seen in Neptune. And sure enough, there's Veronica, standing on the beach, head thrown back, screaming like there's no tomorrow. Then she turns slightly, not much, just enough to see you, and runs.

Into the ocean, barely stopping as she sheds her father's coat at the water's edge.

You chase after her, and keep your eyes trained on the spot where she disappeared into the deep, praying to every god you've ever heard of that you can find her in time.

And someone must have been listening, because you do. After just moments of fumbling blindly in the water, your hand closes on something beautiful, and you drag her up to the surface, where you race back to the shore, careful to keep her head as far from the water as you can.

You don't know whether she decided to run from you and chose the most convenient location, or if she was just trying to drown, but you're not taking any chances by letting her stick her face back in.

Lamb meets you on the shore, and you see him bend down out of the corner of your eye as you strip Veronica out of her wet clothes, too worried to be thinking about modesty, and wrap her up in her father's still mostly dry coat. The thing looks ridiculous on her emaciated body, the sleeves and tail trailing a good foot beyond her fingers and toes, and you could wrap it around her at least twice. You know, because that's what you do, in an effort to keep her as warm as possible.

Then you hear it. "Shit Mars."

You look to see what's got Lamb upset, already sure you don't really want to know.

He holds up an empty medicine bottle and a half-drunk bottle of champagne, and when Veronica sees, she starts to giggle hysterically. You hold her tighter, burrowing your face in her water-logged hair and beginning another prayer while her laughs become dry, painful sobs.

She cries about things like love and need and sorry and "I don't want to die," and you rush her to the police cruiser and then to the hospital.

She finally passes out when the doctors take her from your arms.

**90909**

It takes you three days to convince them that Veronica's not a suicide risk, that she just took that much medication because she was scared and in pain.

You think this isn't such a lie. You know that, subconsciously, at least, your little blond angel wanted to die. But you also know that if she'd been sober, or not in so much physical pain that it even hurt other people to look at her, she wouldn't have taken that much medication. If she'd given the pills time to take effect, she wouldn't have downed the whole bottle.

But mostly you know that somewhere deep in her heart, she was in enough pain to long for death, and this scares you.

Hell, it downright terrifies you, and you marvel at how this itty-bitty little slip of a girl can make the panic close over your throat in a way that your violent, abusive father never could. Aaron would be so jealous.

The moment you can no longer see Veronica, you fall to your knees, unable to breathe for the icy fingers around your windpipe, and Lamb practically drags you back to the Mars apartment, phoning first Leo (to go sit with Veronica until you get back), and then a friend who works at the hospital (to order that Veronica be sedated until you get back, so she doesn't have to wake up without you there).

You've never in your life had to fight the urge to kiss another man before, and if you were the kind of person to think on such things, you're sure you'd wish for someone other than the sheriff to be the first to stir this in you, but dammit if the man doesn't just blow your mind again. You weren't even aware he had friends, much less ones that he could use to help you and Veronica.

Thank God for your great self-control, right?

**90909**

When they finally release her, and you get to take her home, Wallace informs her that he loves her but won't be able to trust her again for quite some time. You agree with him, but when Veronica starts to cry, you want to punch him in the face. You don't though, because he obviously feels bad enough about it.

It takes about five minutes of watching her reaction to Wallace explaining himself for you to realize her breakdown isn't about what he said to her, but has something to do with her father.

You pick her up and carry her into her father's room, cooing soft words of comfort into her ears all night, and this seems to calm her somewhat.

Until you tell her you love her, at which point she cries harder and finally sniffles her first "I love you" into your into your neck. You press your grin into her cheek and reassure her of the same.

You love her.

You always will, and, on some level, you think you always have.


	3. Stay Close While the Sky is Falling

A/N: so if you've been a slacker and haven't read the prequel to this, now would be a good time. cause you won't understand most of this without reading it.

PICKING UP HER PIECES: STAY CLOSE TO ME WHILE THE SKY IS FALLING

**90909**

You have a yacht. You have a sick girlfriend who desperately needs a vacation. What do you do?

Isn't the answer obvious?

**90909**

After you've had Veronica safely home for several days, you finally agree that Lamb had a point about giving her a vacation.

She is wan and pale, and more than a little withdrawn, and you hope a change in scenery will help her heal.

So the next morning, after everything is packed, you bundle her up and carry her onto the boat, while Wallace and Alicia and Lamb follow behind you.

The thing you didn't think about (and you still don't know whether you would have let this change your plans) is that Veronica can't use the wheelchair while on the boat. She still can't walk, because her feet still have to be debrieded (something you and Lamb take turns with, careful to do exactly as the doctor showed you), and she is in constant agony. You marvel at how well she takes it though. You haven't seen her cry once, and you're still waiting for the pain to get the better of her.

Then you hate yourself for watching for it, when, five hours into your vacation, you carry her up to the deck and she falls asleep so twisted in on herself that you can't even begin to correct it, and she's so drugged that you can't even begin to wake her up.

Then she wakes up so tense and sore that she cries for hours, and you realize just how little it takes to break her these days, and you find you still marvel at how well she's taking things.

**90909**

Ever since her little stunt on the beach, you're terrified to trust her with her medication. While you're on the boat, it stays under lock and key in a room on the opposite side of the boat from her. You're pretty sure she won't try anything stupid again, but there are other things that could happen – addiction, for one, and now that you know how easy it would be for her to take too much, all the other horrific possibilities crowd your mind as well.

You spend hours each day trying to get her to take the anti-depressants prescribed to her, with no success, and you think it should reassure you that she doesn't seem to like taking pills. But she's in so much pain, both emotional and physical, that you can't help but wish she'd just follow the doctor's orders.

But part of you realizes it's really no use arguing with her about _this_ point, because you've seen what anti-depressants did to Duncan, and you saw Ronnie's reaction to what they did to Duncan, and you know that she'll never risk having that happen to her.

You decide to make her talk to each of you instead.

**90909**

Wallace goes in to Veronica's room, and stays for hours, and for a while you can hear him on the verge of yelling at her, and you have to stop yourself from barging in and forcibly removing him from the room. You can hear Veronica crying as well, and your heart clenches in your chest. You move towards the door, and Lamb puts a hand on your shoulder.

"Let them be, Logan. They both need this."

And since when did Lamb know what Veronica needed? And since when did you start listening to him?

When Wallace comes out to get his mother, the look on his face makes you glad you listened.

**90909**

You personally are terrified that Veronica will continue to go down her destructive road – that she won't accept your help or let you in, and you will lose her.

Part of you desperately needs to talk to her about it, to tell her you need her too, to beg her not to shut you out. But the bigger part of you is terrified, and doesn't know how to handle her.

You've lost a parent too. Your mother's death _hurt_. But your relationship with your mother wasn't anywhere near as close as Veronica's relationship with her father.

You'd like to be able to tell her you know how she feels. Every other big tragedy in her life, you went through with her. Well, maybe you didn't understand much about Duncan breaking up with her, but Lilly's death? You knew exactly how she felt. Her rape? You didn't have to go through it, but you keenly felt the guilt for being responsible, even if it was long after the fact. Finding out that your father had killed Lilly, and having your father try to kill her? You were with her in her pain.

But this? You can't even begin to imagine, and that scares you.

**90909**

It is late when you go into the master bedroom, and lay down beside, but not quite touching, Veronica.

For hours you lay there in silence, mulling over what you need to say.

Then, finally…

"Will you let us help you, Veronica?" you whisper, not daring to look at her as you speak. "Let us in? Let _me_ in?"

And this last part is something like a plea. Unable to feel this lonely any longer, you inch your hand closer to her and turn it palm-up, waiting for her to take it.

It is that moment that you realize you will wait forever for this little blond pixie.

You give her time to think about her answer, already knowing you're planning on making her agree by the time you're back to Neptune, but also aware that she needs to think about this.

Nearly half an hour later, you hazard a look at her face. Her eyes are too bright and her breath is ragged, and you realize that she _wants_ to say yes, but she just isn't sure she'll be able to keep her promise once she does.

"I'll teach you how. And I'll wait forever."

The transformation is breathtaking. The tiniest of smiles lights on her face, and she slides her hand sideways, until her little fingers intertwine with yours.

You both fall asleep in this position.

**90909**

By the end of the next day, she is feeling much better, at least physically. So the following morning, you carry her up to watch the sun rise with you. If you believed in such things, the sight would be like finding religion. Her hair frames her face in soft waves, the gold highlighted by the sun against the canvas of the sky.

You want it to be like this forever.

**90909**

She falls asleep in your arms, not long after the colorful display has given way to light blue, and you decide to let her stay on the deck for a while. You grab some sunscreen, and take her to the little dining area that is shaded by a tarp. You deposit her gently onto one of the cushions, and cover her in enough sunscreen to drown an elephant in. you can't be too careful with her already burned skin. You wouldn't let her in the sun at all, except the therapist you'd talked to told you to make sure she spent time outdoors, because things like that would help the depression.

It all sounded like holistic mumbo-jumbo to you, but even the doctor who treated her burn told you to make sure she spent at least an hour a day out in the sun – with sunscreen, of course.

So you apply liberal amounts of the stuff, and then lay a thin blanket gently over her. It is summer in California, but out on the ocean, the early mornings are cold. Once she is situated on the cushions, you sit and watch her.

She is beautiful, swathed in blue and her hair framing her head like a halo. She really does look like a little angel. She sighs and rolls over, towards you. It seems almost instinctive for her to seek you out.

You sit there and stroke her hair for hours, until you realize that it's lunch time. Before getting up to grab something for you both, you cover her in more sunscreen and make sure the awning is providing her with plenty of shade.

"Lasagna," you say to the wind, as you smile. You make it from a box, so really, how long could it take?

**90909**

It was a mistake, a simple, stupid mistake, and it almost breaks her again, and you hate yourself. And no matter how safe she is, you're never going to leave her alone and helpless again. You've done that often enough already.

**90909**

She heals remarkably fast. Not just while you're on the boat, but afterwards too. She doesn't ever really _agree_ to see the therapist, but one day you stopped giving her a choice, and Dr. Green is intuitive enough, funny enough, sympathetic enough, something else you don't know _enough_, that Veronica stops arguing after the third appointment.

You're pretty sure Veronica would never have gotten through that first year without her.

And two months after everything in her world came crashing down (literally), your theory is proved true in one of the worst ways possible.

Dick meets Veronica in the Pac-n-Sac. You don't know what happened between them; the only reason you know it was Dick was because the cashier described him and you put it all together.

All you really know is that after you'd let Veronica go out on her own, for the first time since her father died, she has a nervous breakdown in the Pac-n-Sac, and she's been gone for three hours by the time the manager calls you on her phone to tell you that whoever this girl is that has you as her emergency contact is rocking herself and shivering in the middle of the cereal aisle, and she won't respond to anyone but to scream and fight when anyone tries to touch her.

You make it there in record time.

**90909**

When you see her, your heart breaks. She's sitting, curled in on herself, rocking slightly, and shaking so hard you're surprised she hasn't literally shaken herself to bits. Her eyes are squeezed tight and her breaths are coming out in rapid gasps that worry you.

You kneel down beside her, cringing inwardly when your shadow falling over her makes her flinch back from you, and shake even harder (and you didn't even think that was _possible_), and you mentally berate yourself for coming at her from the side when you should have kneeled in front of her, where she can see that its you.

But it doesn't help her for you to get angry, even if it's only at yourself, so you get up and move around to face her.

"Veronica?" you say, but it doesn't catch her attention. "Veronica, open your eyes for me, let me see those baby blues, love."

When she finally pulls one eyelid up, just enough to see that it's really you, her reaction is instant. One moment she's sobbing on the ground, curled in a little ball, and the next, she's finishing her panic attack in your arms.

You force her to turn her head and pop two little pills she'd been prescribed for anxiety onto her tongue. You hold the water bottle while she swallows, then bundle her up into the car.

By the time you stick the key in the ignition, she is asleep.

**90909**

You know you won't find out what happened to her unless you're there with her in the therapists office, but you won't ask her to give that up. You don't think she'd be able to handle it if you demanded to see her that weak, and you know she'd never agree.

Which is why you're a little surprised when she refuses to let go of your hand in the office. You tug on it, experimentally, and she whips around and gives you a look that brings your mind careening back to "Don't let me die, don't _leave_ me, Logan!"

You rush to steal your hand away and put your arm around her, kissing the top of her head and feeling her small sigh of relief as you walk back to the meeting room.

**90909**

When you hear what Dick did to her, you almost snap. You and Dick are _over_. Your friendship is no more. And it's something you should have done when you found out he laid her out for his brother to rape, but you didn't so now will have to do. Then, even before you manage to reach for your phone, you look over and see Veronica, staring dully ahead. Her eyes are heavy with fatigue and the anxiety medication she had to take before seeing the doctor, and, somehow, this reminds you that she's not the only one who lost someone that night.

You don't call Dick. Sometimes it's better for everyone involved if you just forgive and forget.

But while she's sleeping that afternoon, you begin to look for houses.

It's time for a change.

It's time to let go.

**90909**

The house is beautiful, with a porch swing and walls old enough to whisper stories into your bones. The porch faces the rising sun, and Veronica loves it.

There is some work that needs to be done. The price is higher than what it's worth.

But Veronica loves it, so you don't let her see the price tag and you don't haggle with the old owners. This would take too much time.

You start moving in the next week, and by the end of the month, you and Veronica are waking up early to watch the sun rise over the island on your new oak swing.

Every day is a little closer to healing.


	4. Don't Wanna Be Alone

**PICKING UP HER PIECES: DON'T WANNA BE ALONE**

**90909**

**5 years later**

**90909**

You've had the ring for seven weeks. The only real reason you haven't asked her yet is that you still haven't gotten the courage to ask Lamb for her hand.

In the past five years, the man has become the older brother she never had (or wanted), and he's more over-protective of her than you and her father were combined. The irony is that it's really always been like this, you just didn't know it.

Over the past five years, so much has changed.

The Manning's dropped the charges against Duncan in favor of meeting their granddaughter, Lizzie and Grace healed in therapy, and have both become close to your "family". Duncan came back with little Lilly, and she is beautiful. Lizzie started dating Duncan, and Grace started dating Darryl. Gia and Dick never worked out, but they are friends again. He and Mac, however? Yeah.

But the first thing that changed was that Lamb walked in on you and Veronica one night, and since then, he's tried to keep you two from ever being alone together, despite the fact that he was the one to teach you that adage about closing the barn door after the horses escaped. Apparently it doesn't apply to Veronica's sex life (which she isn't allowed to have, according to Lamb… and Alicia… Wallace and Mac just doesn't want to hear about it).

So you've been holding off for the better part of two months, but you've decided that today is the day. You asked Lamb this morning, and his response was something along the lines of him not being able to stop you.

You take her out to the best Italian place you can find within an hour's drive, knowing that she won't suspect a thing. This is the first time you've gone on a date since she started her new job, and she won't be thrown by something extravagant.

And you're right. She doesn't think anything of it, and she has a great time.

She's still confused when the waiter arrives with a little velvet box instead of her food.

You sigh teasingly as you take the box and kneel before her.

That's when it clicks, and you see the tears in her eyes. She is wearing a strapless blue dress that shimmers in the lamplight, and her hair is done in something strange and beautiful that Alicia concocted, and it's just slightly windblown from the drive. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears and something you can't quite place, but it makes you a little nervous, and you can't tell whether they are bad nerves or good nerves.

"Logan…"

**90909**

**(Veronica's aside)**

**90909  
**

_As a little girl, Veronica often dreamed of her wedding day. She would wear white, her mother would cry, and her father would walk her down the aisle. Those were the constants. Who she married changed – from Donald Duck when she was five, to her favorite baseball star as she grew older. _

_By the time she turned 14, it was Duncan, and she and Lilly had a double wedding. Even after Duncan broke up with her, there was still that hope._

_But after Lilly died, and the town turned on her, she stopped thinking about marriage as something beautiful. Her mother disappeared from her future, and she didn't expect there to be an aisle for her father to walk her down._

_But she never, not in a million years, expected to have an aisle, but no daddy to give her away._

_Even after Logan saved her at the Camelot, and her tentative dreams of marriage were restored, even after her father almost died at the hands of Aaron Echolls, her dreams held two new constants: Logan, and her father._

_Secretly, after she took Duncan back the summer before her senior year, she still couldn't see herself marrying him anymore. She tried not to dwell on it too much._

_Then her father did die, and this time, no amount of fluids or skin grafts could bring him back, and she refused to think about marriage. It simply hurt way too much._

_Which is why, when Logan proposed, she wasn't sure what to say at first._

**90909**

The wedding is beautiful. You refuse to let her dwell on the rules of a traditional wedding, who pays for what. You only let Lamb pay for the rehearsal dinner because you knew he needed to feel like he _did_ something for her.

Besides walking her down the aisle while Alicia cried her eyes out in the front row.

You don't let her dwell on what's missing, because, while she's healed from her father's murder, it still hurts you both that he isn't here for this.

**90909**

And you marvel at how everything comes together, in the end. Duncan is your best man. Wallace and Dick are the groomsmen, and Mac, her roommate, Parker, and Trina, of all people are the bridesmaids.

You'll never cease to be amazed when you remember how Trina ended up coming through for you, after finding out what happened.

It was on towards the end of the second summer, and she came back, and tracked you down, and when you told her to leave because you didn't need her crap right now, she only stuck her foot in the door and told you that she knew how to cook 35 famous dishes from all over the world, and it would make Veronica more comfortable to have her than a cook she'd never met, and she knew for a fact that neither of you knew the first thing about boiling water.

She'd quit acting and gone to culinary school, and now owned a rather famous bakery in Neptune. She'd even taught Veronica how to cook several dishes, and you'd re-forged your bonds with her over that.

Right now, though, she stands across the aisle from you, dressed in a blue sundress (and not once did she complain that it wasn't her best color) and grinning at you reassuringly.

You? Have the absolute best family in the world.

And then the sound of a soft guitar (Piz, that's the guy's name… Wallace's roommate at Hearst, and he agreed to play at your wedding) turns your attention to the end of the make-shift aisle you've created by lining the chairs up on the sands. On the chairs sit your entire family… the Manning's (even the older ones… you wouldn't call them friends, but they've become something like family to you), Wallace's girlfriend, Lisa, Gia and her fiancé, Mac's parents, Weevil and his family, Alicia and Darryl, several of Veronica's old clients from her PI days(including a sweet woman named Harmony, who's little girl is going to get her head ripped off by Grace if she doesn't stop ogling Darryl like that), and almost every single deputy from the Neptune county sheriff's department.

Lilly is walking down the aisle, throwing blue-dyed flower petals on the ground, and after her – Lamb, escorting the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

She is dressed in the simplest white sundress, and you, knowing the soft scraps of blue underneath, smile to yourself. She's _really _going to do this…

She catches your disbelieving look and gives you one of her own that clearly says "Why would you think I was kidding about this?" as she strides gracefully down the aisle to the sound of a soft Spanish guitar.

You say your vows, and kiss the bride, and then, laughing, she pulls the string on her sundress as you shuck your khakis and shirt. The pastor moves out of the way, laughing with you both as you race towards the chilly pacific ocean in your swimsuits.

Behind you, Mac shouts something about the reception being at a nearby Italian place, in order to get the gawking audience to leave and give you some privacy. As the last person leaves, and you hold your new wife in the ocean, Leo comes to the water's edge and clears his throat.

You and Veronica turn.

"Ummm... I didn't figure you guys were gonna make it to the reception, so I figured I'd offer my congratulations now, Sheriff Mars," he says, nodding towards you.

"Echolls... Sheriff Echolls... and thanks, Leo. I'll see you back at the station when I get back?"

He nods.

"Good. Hold down the fort while I'm gone."

She was probably about to say something else, but you pick her up and then dunk her, making even Leo grin awkwardly. You pick her back up, and she spits the water out in your face as you grin at her.

"Hey, you _said_ you wanted to go all in..." you tease her, and her only response is to attack your mouth with enough force to knock you both over.

And you thought she wasn't really going to go through with it. Turns out, the only part you shouldn't have believed was the part about getting back to the reception.

**The End**


End file.
